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Chaplain and Orou's Dialogue

In Denis Diderot’s “Supplement to Bougainville’s
Voyage,” two contrasting viewpoints of religion and morals clash: a European
chaplain stands in favor of civilized religion and morals, and a Tahitian
opposes them. The European was a chaplain accompanying his crew’s voyage to the
foreign land, and Orou was the chaplain’s host during his stay. To start, the
two men held completely different opinions. Toward the end of their discussion,
however, the chaplain had learned to understand the Tahitian’s point of view. Furthermore,
it is likely that Diderot sides with the Tahitian, based on his intentional
choice to make the chaplain appear unskilled in debate, and also the commentary
between “A” and “B” that concludes this piece.

The whole
debate begins after Orou and his family finishes eating supper with the
chaplain: “When he was about to go to bed, Orou. . . presented to him his wife
and three girls—all naked as Eve” (194). Diderot’s choice of the verb
“presented” indicates that Orou views his wife and children more as objects to
present to a guest as a gift; since the women are naked, one can assume that
the gift is sexual. Orou then offers the chaplain his pick of the four as a
gesture of hospitality, but also requests that the chaplain might choose his
youngest, childless daughter as a favor. After the chaplain declines the offer,
Orou begins a long rant that bashes religion: “I don’t know what this thing is
that you call ‘religion,’ but I can only have a low opinion of it because it
forbids you to partake of an innocent pleasure to which Nature, the sovereign
mistress of us all, invites everybody” (195). Right from the outset, the
Tahitian’s opinion is clear. His hedonistic logic is that when people have any
physical desires, they should gratify them. If someone desires to have sex, it
must be right, since the desires are part of Nature. Subsequently, if any
system of belief denies its believers the free exchange of sex, which is a
natural urge, it must be wrong.

The
chaplain, on the other hand, displays his belief in the opposite view when he
declines Orou’s wife and daughters: “The chaplain replied that his religion his
holy orders, his moral standards and his sense of decency all prevented him
from accepting Orou’s invitation.” His logic is not based on physical desire,
like Orou’s, but on his belief that his God would not want him to have sex with
the women out of wedlock. Nevertheless, despite his belief in his “holy
orders,” the chaplain eventually obliges Orou’s request. In giving in to
temptation, the chaplain has essentially proven himself a hypocrite and,
therefore, lost the argument. He has proven Orou’s point that Nature is greater
than religion by showing that his desire for sex surpassed his belief in
holiness and decency.

Not long
after the holy man is seduced, Orou proves his point even more strongly by
essentially making the chaplain admit that no one lives up to the standards of
his religion. The chaplain confesses that married men and women have sex with
partners other than their spouses frequently in Europe:
“Nothing happens more often” (201). He admits that monks do not remain faithful
to their vows of abstinence. He even tells Orou on page 212 that monks do not
do any work. It is extremely unlikely that a real-life monk would say that,
even if it were true, which betrays Diderot’s prejudice against religion and
his preference for the Tahitian view.

The monk’s unrealistically
low opinion of his profession and his admission that nothing happens more
frequently than spouses cheating on each other show that Diderot believes in
Orou’s view of sex and religion over the chaplain’s. He has systematically
struck down Christian conceptions of sex and morals by authoring a hypothetical
debate between a fictional Tahitian and chaplain.

Another choice of Diderot’s that
indicates his preference is that Orou is the only major character in the whole
piece that receives a name. Not even his dual narrators receive real names. The
fact that Orou has a name makes him a more realistic character—one with whom
Diderot symphathizes. The chaplain is merely a stock character created by
Diderot’s perception of men in the ministry, which is why he receives no name
besides his profession. Futhermore, Diderot purposefully wrote this work in a
way that gives Orou lengthy speeches to prove his point while the chaplain
never has a long block of text to state his case. The effect is that the
chaplain seems to have nothing to say to back his opinions, so he ends the argument
a loser.

Even the ending discussion of “A”
and “B” confirm Diderot’s position on the matter, as both narrators come to the
consensus that the standard civilized way of thought is flawed: “If you want to
become a tyrant, civilize [people]; poison [them] as best you can with a system
of morality that is contrary to nature.” Here narrator B makes the same
assertion that Orou had before, that morals are worthless unless they conform
to natural law. If Diderot wanted to be subtle, he could have let the debate
with Orou and the chaplain stand by itself. Instead, he decided to make his
message to readers blatant, so he included narrators to erase any doubt of his
story’s intended meaning.